


too much honey, too much wine.

by Luminaryquitecontrary



Category: Riviera: The Promised Land
Genre: Ledah and Hector were mentioned but who cares about them lmao, Malice has an unnamed gf as a kid, Mentions of underage drinking, Other, everything I write is canon divergent lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-10-11 06:00:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20541260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luminaryquitecontrary/pseuds/Luminaryquitecontrary
Summary: i learned some things never heal with time.





	too much honey, too much wine.

Malice tore up the hems of her dresses and forsook the comfort of the soft blankets for the hard floor and the cool grass.  
An idealistic and stubborn child. Just like any other.  
When she was young she cut her hair with a knife, it always grew back unevenly.  
Her feathers fell out and her hands were stained with green and the colors of flowers, bright red if she was caught on thorns (as she often was).  
She wanted to grow strong, but she was too weak. She wanted to grow taller than her little brother, who shot up like a tree and then stagnated once he turned 10.  
She didn’t until she turned 15 and ran away from both her brother and her mother’s sleeping form.  
Sleeping. She was sleeping.   
That’s all she told her brother two years after he stopped growing, and she was never seen again.  
Ironically enough, now, she outranked him. While considered weak by her superior (who she was always growing stronger for the sake of) she was still stronger than he was. Stronger of will and stronger of body.  
And she hated him more than anything else. (Or so she told her master, who almost seemed to encourage this, coaxing her into promising to “make sure he doesn’t fall out of line”.)  
Her fists were bruised and when she fought, she gripped her weapon so hard that blisters formed on her hands and broke open.   
She was a warrior, born and sworn to fight until she finally died. It was hard to tell if she enjoyed fighting or if she saw it as a way to project the pain she felt across the world.  
Malice used to love sweets. Her mother cooked them and split them amongst the siblings (until she had fallen ill) and Malice would frequently steal them from her younger brother who did not care for them.  
Their father was rarely present, so when he was home it was reason enough to celebrate with a larger meal and Malice and her brother were forced to squeeze themselves into the same formal clothing they had worn every year.   
Occasionally he brought home toys. Her brother seemed scared to break them and Malice often spitefully crushed her own after her father left. Regretting it a week later when she had time to herself.  
Sometimes, Malice was allowed to go into the city, the southernmost area of Asgard, and she was asked to drag her brother with her, keeping her from meeting with her “childhood sweetheart”, a girl from the flower shop who would come to the graveyard with her to lay roses on her grandmother’s grave, and would hand her sweets over the counter.  
After awhile, the graveyard visits turned to picnics, and the girl would bring her mother’s “favorite drink” and mix honey into it to to dull the bitterness. Malice never remembered what happened afterward but the girl said that she was “cute”.   
When the demons invaded Malice never saw her again. Some people said she betrayed Asgard, and others said she just died.  
That made three people she loved that left her because of Ragnarok. Malice hated demons, but she hated her father more, for letting this happen.  
She still hated Ledah the most, he was everything she hated both before and after Ragnarok. He was both weak and nothing at all. Disgusting. A pathetic existence wearing the face of her brother.  
And it made her sick.  
And it made her upset, sad even, that she still had any care for somebody like him.  
Somebody who, even if he did remember her, wasn’t even capable of feeling anything- most importantly hatred- toward her.  
Occasionally her master praised him, comparing his blind obedience to her sworn loyalty.  
Part of her knew it was merely to stir her rage, but the other part had already been consumed by it.  
……..Perhaps her hatred of her brother was entirely her master’s doing. If it was, she cared little. He clearly knew what was best for her. If he didn’t- then she would have died hundreds of years ago.  
So Malice, resigned to her sad little fate (that she herself would never know would be completely worthless- just like she was in her master’s eyes.) poured honey into a small glass of her first sweetheart’s beverage of choice and downed it quickly, letting her doubts fade away with the liquid in the cup.


End file.
